


These Hands That Hold

by heretherebemonsters



Series: Eruri Week 2015 [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Canon Era, Eruri Week, Eruri Week 2015, Introspection, M/M, eruri - Freeform, kind of sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4510158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heretherebemonsters/pseuds/heretherebemonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi loves Erwin's hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Hands That Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Eruri Week 2015 Prompt Fill: Touch

Levi loved Erwin’s hands.

They were so much bigger than his own, the palms broader and the fingers thicker. He knew that they were strong, so strong, and covered in hard-earned callouses and scars born of endless effort. Those hands had wielded blades countless times in swift killing blows. They had punched men when necessary and restrained others when the situation called for it. Levi had seen them covered in blood and dirt. They were hands that knew a hard day’s work and weren’t afraid of it.

Levi also knew that those same hands were capable of more than mere strength. He had seen them scratch affectionately at a horse’s forehead, quickly and dexterously fix broken gear in the field, squeeze the shoulder of a soldier who had just lost a friend. They had written countless reports and death certificates, always steady and sure. He knew those hands were made of surprising grace and boundless kindness in equal measure to their inherent strength.

Levi sometimes felt that Erwin cradled his entire world in those large hands.

It was Erwin’s hands that had lifted him up out of the Underground all those years ago. It was those same hands that had guided him, at times gently, other times firmly, on his journey to becoming who he was now, bringing out his true potential and teaching him things about himself he had never known. Like the fact that he was a capable leader, like the fact that he had it in himself to fight for a cause much greater than anything he’d imagined in his old life. Those hands had taught him to see and understand and even after everything that had happened Levi couldn’t bring himself to regret any of it.

There was no doubt in Levi’s mind at all that his heart was completely in Erwin’s grasp. He often wondered if the other man truly realized the depth of effect he had on his captain. One fleeting touch of those knowing fingertips was enough to make him weak in the knees. He knew well how those rough, warm palms felt against his bare skin, stimulating and somehow soothing at the same time. Erwin’s hands had brought Levi to the edge of the world on a wave of pleasure too many times to count, bringing the passion that he stubbornly kept buried to the surface every time. He had cursed Erwin and called him a bastard for crumbling his inhibitions but Levi secretly loved every moment of it and Erwin knew it.

But Erwin’s hands had brought much more than simple pleasure. They had comforted Levi in the middle of the night after a particularly gruesome nightmare, smoothing his hair back from his forehead gently. They had cupped his face reverently as Erwin studied him with so much love in his clear blue eyes. They had held him close in a tight embrace after a long grueling journey outside the walls, when they had both shook and clung to one another in the cold rain as the bells tolled overhead. They had gripped his, fingers laced together, late in the night when the otherwise silent air was filled with whispered words and barely audible moans and tiny cries, Levi’s link to everything that mattered, his lifeline. The memory, the sensation, of Erwin’s palms pressed to his would be forever seared into his mind.

Even now, with only one hand left with which to shoulder the burdens of the world, only one hand left in which to carefully hold Levi’s very existence, Erwin would continue on as he always had. Building things with those strong beautiful hands, molding things and destroying things. For he had taught Levi long ago that sometimes things must be torn down in order to make way for something better. Levi was sure no one was better suited to that very principle than Erwin. He had torn Levi down, only to build him back up, after all.

And through all the years they had been constantly at one another’s sides, the word love had never passed between them. There had never been a need for it. If Erwin’s eyes didn’t broadcast his true feelings for Levi clearly enough, his touch made up for it. Levi could feel the trust and affection and yes, the love Erwin held for him being embedded into his skin every time those hands touched him. Levi did his utmost to return it, letting it ring out loudly in the still of the nights they spent together.

_  
I love you, Levi._

_  
I love you too, you giant blonde oaf._


End file.
